Make My Way Back Home To You
by define-serenity
Summary: [Barry/Caitlin] In blissfully quiet moments at night she'll card her fingers through his hair and question whether he ever thinks about her wellbeing. She wonders if he thinks about what leaving her behind does to her every time he utters the words, "Caitlin, I have to do this." ONESHOT. COMPLETE.


Barry/Caitlin, 1466 words, pg-rated.

i gave Caitlin's past my own spin (it's still up for grabs after all).

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_**Make My Way Back Home To You**_

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"Please, Barry, just this once, stay here," she pleads, her hands on his chest more symbolic than actually helpful; she hadn't been able to stop him from changing into the suit, what she hoped to achieve at this point was beyond anyone's understanding. "Your suit isn't designed to handle cold. You could die."

"These people will die if I don't do something," comes Barry's logical yet measured reply; they've had this conversation often enough to realize which scenario they're playing out this time, and right now it's decidedly one that will leave her in tears. "The police can't handle this."

"Neither can you." She practically shouts. "Do you have any idea what hypothermia does to your brain? What frostbite can do to your skin?"

A short intake of breath behind her has her spinning around on her heels, throwing an accusing glance at Cisco who's no doubt ready to name their next meta-human. "Not now, Cisco."

She whirls around again and raises a finger at her boyfriend in warning, picking up her train of thought right where she left off. "Because I do, Barry Allen, and I'm pretty sure you can't grow back entire limbs."

Barry licks his lips and takes a step forward, bringing her hands back to his chest, where his heart beats fast and strong underneath a golden bolt of lightning. Sometimes she wants to rip it off and carve it into his chest, but she's seen him heal far too often from much more severe wounds. "Caitlin, I can do this."

She sighs. "You're just one man, Barry."

One man can't take on the world, one man can't save the world, yet for some reason Barry has chosen to shoulder all of it, all the injustice and all the guilt, all the fall-out from an accident STAR labs caused and he was a victim of all the same.

"I'm not alone."

He doesn't say _I'm not Ronnie_, Barry never plays the Ronnie card, far too thoughtful and decent for that. She plays it on herself from time to time, when Barry's out there risking his life and she wonders what new limits of his meta-human body he'll be testing today, until her guilt sets in too coarse beneath her skin and she focuses on the monitors again. Heart rate, blood pressure, glucose levels, all normal, though if she were to check her own they'd be all over the map. Ronnie risked his life once and paid the highest price he could, and even though Barry's reasons are laudable, he risks his life willfully, often without any regard for his own wellbeing.

In blissfully quiet moments at night, when Barry's all but passed out and snoring next to her, a nimble hand at her waist and his lips pushed up against her forehead, she'll card her fingers through his hair and question whether he ever thinks about her wellbeing. He's saved her life, countless of times, and she's returned the favor in her own begrudgingly angry way, but when he runs from her headfirst into danger she wonders if he thinks about what leaving her behind does to her, if he accounts for the potential heartbreak he causes every time he utters the words, "Caitlin, I have to do this."

It reminds her of a ring around her finger, now but a ghostly imprint meant as a cautionary tale, of what happens when she lets her guard down, when she lets someone like Barry or Ronnie close. She runs the risk of losing them. And ever since the note from her mother that ended with, "I'm sorry," she started taking everyone's leaving personal.

But Barry does know, he's far more perceptive of the infinitesimally small twitches in her lips or eyebrows, something Iris points out they share; that's why that kiss he stamps on her lips right before he leaves is different than the one they share in greeting, the latter laced with forgiveness and anger dissipating, the former meant as an apology, the _I have to_ encapsulated within Barry's fingers on her cheek, in the playful little tug he gives her ear every time he pulls back, a kiss always a little rougher, always a little more desperate.

And it gets a little harder every time, trying to ignore Cisco's and Dr Wells' pitiful stares, the way they turn quiet in the _whoosh_ of Barry super-speeding away, and every night she spends alone in bed only leaves her tossing and turning until she hears that _whoosh_ again in the living room, Barry cursing when he knocks into a new side table she ordered online, and the amused curl of a smile around a corner of her mouth when he finally, thankfully, slides into bed with her.

"Still employed?" she'll mumble, Barry faintly smelling of formaldehyde and stale precinct coffee. Sometimes, his day job steals him away from her too.

And Barry will chuckle, kiss her forehead and whisper, "Still employed."

They'll fall asleep around the same time, rearranged into Barry spooned around her, her left hand locked with his right, and she'll finally let it all go, the anger, the hurt, the doubt that she might've made a mistake – Barry's home safe, that's all that matters.

"Caitlin, I have to go."

She nods in acknowledgement, a tear slipping down her cheek.

"Caitlin."

For all of Barry's faults she can never claim he doesn't care, in fact she'd be quick to argue he cares far too much for people he doesn't owe his powers or his life to – Barry reads her like an open book, her skin like braille when they're entwined together in bed, her soft whimpers hieroglyphics she's allowed him far too much time to decipher. But she knows Barry like she knows herself, she can't beg for his guilt right now. He can't take that with him when he's out there fighting crime.

So she does what she often does, what her particular circumstances taught her to do; she wipes at her tears and takes a deep breath, pinches her thumbs inside hands made into fists.

"I know you have to go." She turns on a smile that's anything but, but it's for Barry, so that his worries can't distract him, and for herself, still so afraid to show how vulnerable love makes her. "I understand. Go be a hero."

Deep down Barry's cheesy enough to discount his hero-status if it meant un-breaking the small cracks in her heart his running away causes, but he never plays that card either. She never tries on that singular fantasy, they're the people they are because their circumstances made them so, Barry's mom killed, her mother leaving, the particle accelerator explosion, all these things worked to draw them together, and positing alternate realities or parallel universes sounds more like Cisco's forte anyway.

(In a parallel universe where none of those things ever happened, though, they would've met at med school, she would work to become a cardio-vascular surgeon like her mom, Barry an ER doctor, chasing a little more excitement than his father did.)

Barry whisks a kiss off her lips and tugs at her ear, twice this time.

"I'll be back before you know it."

She doesn't want him to be a hero, she doesn't need heroes in her life because all they inevitably do is leave, even if they come back at the end of the day. Her life has become a string of moments where she gets left behind, where she's helpless until she can track Barry's vitals on the monitor within the safety of the lab.

"Oh, and babe," Barry's voice sounds through the speakers. "I love you."

Heat shoots into her cheeks, but she rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

She never lets him off the hook that easy, but Barry needs this, Barry needs to run. And she needs Barry happy.

So she'll give it a few seconds, open a private line to her headset and give Cisco no chance to start fanboying over her being the Uhura to Barry's Spock, she'll turn her back on her colleagues, feel a smile vibrate through her lips where Barry's kiss still lingers, and whisper, "I love you too, idiot."

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_**fin**_


End file.
